


Wake Me Up

by Word_Addict



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gift Fic, POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Word_Addict/pseuds/Word_Addict
Summary: "We kept laughing, and for the first time I started to understand exactly what I saw in Peeta. Beyond a debt, beyond a game played for survival, beyond faked attraction for the camera, I saw what drew me to him. There was a softness that even the Games hadn’t taken from him."
Relationships: Haymitch Abernathy & Katniss Everdeen, Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69
Collections: The Hunger Games 2019 Season of Hope Holiday Gift Exchange





	Wake Me Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emma_writes_things](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_writes_things/gifts).



> Part of the Hunger Games 2019 Season of Hope Holiday Gift Exchange
> 
> For the prompt: "I'd like to see them at a party, and either have a ptsd moment and they need comfort"

I could hear them on the other side of the door. Laughing, talking, chattering like a bunch of jabberjays that didn’t know what they were talking about, only that they had been programmed to say it. It was too soon, too much, and I knew I couldn’t do it.

There was a mirror beside me, and I looked into it, using the excuse of wanting to check up on my absurdly long false eyelashes. The girl I saw was afraid and everyone could see it. I tried to look indifferent, arranging my features into a mask that no one could see through, but it didn’t work. One wrong word and it would all crumble.

“Ready?” Effie trilled, coming around the corner with Peeta and Haymitch trailing her. “We’ve got one shot to make it count!”

I took a deep breath and stepped towards the door. Trying not to fall over in the too-tall heels I was wearing, I reached for Peeta’s arm. Haymitch shot us a thumbs-up, hopefully in encouragement, and then Effie opened the door and I realized just how many eyes were looking at us.

The room fell silent as we moved, the jabberjays silencing one by one. I focused on keeping the mask in place as we moved, wishing I could draw some strength from Peeta. He was just as frozen as I was when we finally stopped in front of a knot of people at the front of the room.

“Well, look who we have here,” a woman dressed in rubies drawled, “it’s our newest Victors.” She picked a glass off of a tray held by a nearby Avox. “Welcome to the club,” she said sweetly, holding it out towards me.

“Thank you,” I said after a moment, accepting the glass.

“Relax,” a man that looked just like the bejeweled woman chuckled. “She didn’t poison it.”

“Yet,” another woman added.

I must have looked as terrified as I felt, because the small group started laughing. Peeta stiffened slightly beside me as I tightened my grip on his arm. Back home I would have known what to do. Even in the Hob there were rules and unspoken agreements. But here, among the shine and glamour of the Capitol, I was firing blind. The two of us were Victors in name only, and everyone in this group knew it.

“Lay off, Cash,” Haymitch sighed. Stepping up to my other side, he took the glass from my hand and downed it in one gulp.

An ugly look flashed across the face of the man who had spoken. “Ever the lush,” he said icily. “These two were lucky to survive with _you_ mentoring them.”

Haymitch sneered back. “Luckier than the two that you left lying in the arena, that’s for sure. What were their names again?”

The man stepped forward, but the woman that must have been his twin put her hand on his shoulder. “Stop it,” she sighed. “They’re not worth it.” Her eyes swept over us with an unreadable look before she melted into the chattering crowd with her brother.

“District One pricks,” Haymitch scoffed, replacing his empty glass with a full one. “Still, they have good taste in liquor.”

“Is that all you can think about?” I demanded. Memories of the District One boy falling to his knees with my arrow in his throat were already starting to resurface, but I was determined not to give into them. “Getting drunk?”

“Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.” Another woman stepped up to join us, a glass in her hand. “Ametrine Snowmist,” she introduced herself.

I raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous name but shook her hand anyway. Peeta did the same, his balance thrown off by his still-new prosthetic.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ametrine said, taking a sip of some violently green liquid. “You’re feeling totally out of your depth, like you’ll never fit in with these self-righteous assholes.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she kept talking.

“Don’t get me wrong – you won’t. Part of the,” she grimaced, “ _charm_ of this place.”

“Aren’t you from District One?” Peeta asked bluntly.

Haymitch laughed loudly. “What, you think she’s from Eight with a name like that?”

“No, but…” Peeta trailed off, his face reddening.”

Ametrine chuckled. “Not everyone here is cut from the same cloth, kid. Don’t judge us all by those uptight dolls they shove onto the stage every year.” She shook her head and drank again. “Take that girl this year – what _was_ her name? Glimmer?”

“Glimmer,” I muttered, remembering the tracker jacker nest that I’d sent crashing into the Career pack. “I killed her.”

Ametrine shrugged. “It happens. However it plays out, we’re only getting one back anyway.”

_Except now you have none. I killed both of them._ I tried to block it out, forget the sight of their faces in the sky. _I killed_ both _of them._ They might have gotten one of them back in a normal year. Even this year, if I hadn’t been in that arena, it might have been both of them. I gasped, thinking about Glimmer and her partner on the stage in our place. _No. They would have fought. Given the Capitol what they wanted._

_But what if they hadn’t?_

“Katniss?”

“I’m fine,” I said to Peeta, ignoring my heart pounding so hard it felt like I might faint.

“Here,” Haymitch said, handing me a glass. “It’s just water,” he said at the look I shot him.

I took a small sip, then another, but it didn’t do much. _I don’t even know what I’m doing. Someone else should be here. Even Peeta knows what to say better than I do._

I remembered the interview night, where Peeta had stunned the whole crowd into silence with only a few words. _He’s the reason I survived at all – I don’t deserve to be here._ The thought shocked me, but the more I turned it over in my head the more I realized its validity. _Without me, he wouldn’t have had to join the Careers. He wouldn’t have gotten hurt and infected. He could have hidden until the last day._

I sucked in a breath. _Without me, he wouldn’t have lost his leg._

I felt oddly detached, like I was watching a film of everything going on around myself. Peeta was saying something over and over again, his hand on my shoulder. It took me a moment to recognize my name.

“Katniss? Katniss!”

“I’m fine,” I said again. I focused on a spot over his shoulder, unable to meet his eyes. _I saved him. If I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have needed saving._

Somewhere, Haymitch and Ametrine were talking. Their voices were faster than normal. Haymitch stepped into my line of vision and gestured to the crowd. Distantly, I recognized that he was nervous. He pointed between Peeta and I. He said something ending in, “come on.”

I followed Peeta through the crowd, their empty words sliding over me without impacting. I knew the mask was cracking, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. _I was the girl on fire and it burned me up._ The confidence that Cinna had summoned for me with his creations was gone and in its place was a comfortable apathy.

I followed Peeta to a small room draped in heavy velvet. Ametrine drew a thick curtain over the entrance. Her and Haymitch stayed outside the room. Peeta sat down on the bed that was there, guiding me to sit beside him.

“Katniss?”

“I’m fine,” I muttered, staring at where his pant leg was riding up. There should have been flesh and bone there, a leg to match the one beside it instead of the metal and wire had taken its place. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I shouldn’t’ve,” I started and then stopped. _How do you apologize for costing someone their leg?_ “In the arena,” I tried. The easy, detached feeling was fading, and I felt like crying. “Your leg.”

Peeta’s expression changed and he turned to look at me. “You saved my leg. Remember?”

“Only after I hurt it,” I murmured, tears starting to slide down my cheeks.

“ _Cato_ did that,” Peeta insisted. “Not you.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, the first unscripted move we’d made in days.

“If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have joined the Careers,” I said, trying to find a way to explain my thoughts. “Then your leg wouldn’t’ve been amputated.”

Peeta sighed, his breath warm against my ear. “Katniss,” he said slowly, “if it wasn’t for you being there – in the arena – Prim would have been Reaped.”

_Prim._ I sobbed at her name, the apathy dissolving completely. _How could I have forgotten about her?_ I held onto Peeta as I cried. “I’m sorry,” I whispered over and over again. “So sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Peeta murmured, wrapping his other arm around me. “Not at all.”

I didn’t know how long it was until I straightened up, wiping my hand across my face. “Sorry,” I muttered.

Peeta shrugged. “Personally, I think it’s fashionable,” he said, looking down at his shirt. “Very avant-garde.”

I laughed, looking at the smears of black and brown across his white shirt. “I don’t know if Effie will see it that way.”

He grinned. “I could just not wear a shirt.”

We kept laughing, and for the first time I started to understand exactly what I saw in Peeta. Beyond a debt, beyond a game played for survival, beyond faked attraction for the camera, I saw what drew me to him. There was a softness that even the Games hadn’t taken from him.

I reached out, intertwining my fingers with his. “Thank you,” I said. “For,” _saving me, reminding me why, telling me I was worth saving,_ “everything.”

“That’s an awful lot,” Peeta said lightly, trying to mask the worry. “I hope I deserve it.”

“You do,” I said, leaning in and covering his lips with mine.


End file.
